By a Landslide
by Raichu Simpson
Summary: Clemont was severely ill, with an unknown illness to boot. His little sister always tells herself that it was her own fault for this, so she's left with a sole option to be with him at his last moments, and by heart, she knew that was way better than anything else - by a landslide, actually.


_I was updating my 3DS, and I thought the Miiverse ID whatevers was needed to update X and Y. My dad was about to pay fifty cents just for that, but then the zip code worked differently for the US and Canada. I kept saying that "I'll never see the light of day" and "what do I live for now", until I realized you didn't need an ID to update. Go figure, crappy moments like this happen to me anyway._

_I don't own Pokemon._

* * *

"Where is he?"

The young adult slapped her hand on the counter, making the nurse startled as she looked to find herself looking at a regular visitor. "Monsieur Clemont is in his usual place. His operation's just finished, but I'm afraid –"

"Thank you." The woman curtly cut off. She sped off, blonde hair freely dashing along with her in the form of two long braids. The small rodent behind her followed without question, copying the serious expression her master displayed.

Bonnie noted that her visits for this whole week had an interval of ten minutes in between her meal breaks, coming back and forth to Lumiose's local hospital with either food or those imported berry juices. Whenever she did, she always told herself that she had seen it coming, with the way her brother spent his time until three in the morning devising new gadgets, battling challengers that lasted around three hours - for the least. She was upset at herself for not having him checked earlier.

She was that much of "too late" that she had to take over for her brother's position around over a year now, given the task of caretaking for Clemont's emolga, magneton and heliolisk, all three extremely worried just as much as she was. Bonnie sighed, miserably frowning as she pushed the handle of one door that was embroidered with the number 104.

_Now or never,_ she thought to herself.

She puffed her cheeks in an attempt to be childish, a character she had lost ten years ago. She forgot how or why, not that it mattered though. Her eyes began to swell, water hanging on the corner of her eyes.

_"Brother!"_ She screamed, voice cracked and unstable. She saw his thirty-year-old brother, decorated with hospital devices like the plastic mask he was breathing in and the dextrose bag that went wired to his left hand, concealed with a bandage and come cotton. This was the result of her procrastination.

Clemont's eyes were half-opened, his rounded spectacles reflecting the quivering mouth his sibling had. He looked pale and slightly skinnier, as if some famine just happened without her. His blonde hair was thinner now, other strands quickly wilting one by one. He was wearing those provisional blouses all hospitals had, with those randomly-patterned dots. He moaned, coughing harshly.

"I'm sorry, brother," Bonnie whispered, rubbing his stomach as she grabbed the nearest stool to sit on. "I didn't know about this..." She trailed off, resting her head on him. If he were still conscious enough, he would've felt the tears splashing on his fuzzy blanket. But he didn't.

The dedenne beside her looked down as if to sulk, squeaking briefly as it gave a sad expression. It leapt to Clemont's cheek, nuzzling him in an attempt to awaken him. He just continued grunting roughly, ignoring his two visitors. _"De! Ne-ne! Ne!"_ It managed to choke out, getting teary-eyed just like its trainer's, whose eyes were red with the weeping she did, which was only for a minute.

"B-Bonnie..." He spoke up, voice cracking five times within that one word. The blonde looked up, smiling weakly to encourage him. She wiped her tears away with her clenched fist as an added bonus. "Y-yes, Clemont?" She spoke in a soft voice.

"Th-the fu-f-future... it's now, r-r-ri-right? S-sc-science di-did it, r-right?" He mumbled, in a dazed state, forgetting the condition he had, acting like it never even existed. Bonnie's wide grin disappeared in an instant, the words "memory loss" playing in her head like a broken record.

His tagline often bore her, even right now. "I-it was never science," Bonnie pointed out, wrapping her arms around her big brother: her signature death hug. "It was you that gave me the future that's the 'now' I have today." She pecked him on the cheek.

"Bon-Bonnie?" he asked again, with a wide smile as he rubbed her hair softly.

"Mm?" She asked as her eyes looked fondly at his face, but silently let the tears flow freely.

"I-I th-th-think tha-that all-all — I think th-th-that, that all my inventions f-f-failed." He frowned, ignoring the insightful message his sister just gave. Bonnie didn't mind that much though.

"You didn't fail to make me."

"B-Bonnie?" He repeated. His voice began to shrink in volume, but his sibling was glad to guess his muffled words, just for their cherished last moment. "Yeah?" He began to slow down his petting, like a bus nearing its stop.

_"Thank you."_

Bonnie closed her eyes, embracing Clemont as tight as she could. When he stopped moving his hand, she knew that their journey together had come to a complete stop. She knew good things never last, as told by Clemont himself, but she knew that they would make those good things count, and that was _way_ better by a landslide.


End file.
